


Magic

by Nock_and_Bolt



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Doubt, Emotional Hurt, Episode: s02e15 Revelations, Episode: s02e16 Fear and Loathing, Episode: s02e17 Distress, Episode: s02e18 Jones, Family Issues, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Post-Episode: s02e19 Ashes and Dust, Relationship Issues, Season/Series 02, Team Dynamics, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:07:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24291811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nock_and_Bolt/pseuds/Nock_and_Bolt
Summary: Sometimes, Reid wished he wasn't so good at misdirection. Concerns events following the episode "Revelations."
Relationships: Spencer Reid & The BAU Team
Comments: 14
Kudos: 166





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this is set all the way back in Season 2. If you are like me, then you took issue with how CM handled the aftermath of “Revelations.” They set up this wonderfully complex character struggle just asking for conflict, growth, and team bonding moments and then proceeded to only lightly skim over the consequences of the whole ordeal. 
> 
> Don’t get me wrong, I was pleased whenever they addressed the different aspects of how Reid’s kidnapping affected him. However, looking at the episodes “dealing” with the aftermath, something immediately jumps out--not once did they ever really address the ongoing problem (namely Reid’s drug use). It still irritates me that evidently, no one helped him, so I made this--my interpretation of the events following “Revelations.” 
> 
> Just some things to note: this is my first CM fic, it pretty much adheres to canon, it’s definitely Reid-centric, and I’ll be posting this in three parts. Also, I wrote this several years ago (it's been up on FFnet) but I figure it's time I started integrating my accounts stories-wise so here we are. 
> 
> That’s pretty much it. Enjoy!

Sometimes, Reid wished he wasn't so good at misdirection.

It had been dead useful in his childhood--keeping away CPS with no real guardian and a mentally unstable dependent at the age of ten required some doing, after all. 

Getting bullied had even helped in that endeavor, if such a word could be used in connection with his childhood of never-ending torment. After all, if he could indirectly provoke some of the more temperamental jocks to violence from time to time (which took less effort than Reid was strictly comfortable with), then no one would question the day he came to school with a black eye because his mother thought he was an imposter, or bandaged hands because he'd had to do the cooking again and he still had yet to master cutting vegetables or using the stove. They assumed the quickest, easiest explanation and attributed any scrapes or bruises to what they'd seen with their own eyes. 

His love of magic and trickery of the eye only gave him more tools and techniques to add to his arsenal. If he was honest with himself, he might even say it inspired him to adopt and internalize this particular method of evasion. It amazed and intrigued him, how easily the eye could be deceived, the mind tricked, the senses duped.

Now you see it, now you don't.

Life, a shell game that can't be won.

After years of practice and refining, he was well versed in the “magic” that was essentially math, illusion, dexterity, and a good measure of showmanship. He supposed it was only natural that it became a habit, that he kept misdirecting and misleading when it came to personal problems in his adult life.

They all had their methods of shutting people out, of obscuring the truth from one another, but Reid had found he was only ever good at the one.

He didn't have a stone-cold facade he could hide behind like Hotch. He couldn't draw a shield of humor or anger around him for protection like Morgan. He couldn't compartmentalize like Prentiss. He couldn't keep up an unblemished mask of composure like JJ. He couldn't get people to back off with simple silence and stature like Gideon. He couldn't even _imagine_ being totally honest and open with others like Garcia so often was. 

But he couldn't lie, either. Not just because he was rubbish at it (and wasn't that the truth), but because his team was his family. 

So when Morgan approached him on the plane after his first case back on the job after Georgia, he told him a partial truth. The leaves and pictures of the victims _had_ bothered him--he had even had a series of vivid flashbacks in the middle of the local PD, for crying out loud--but that wasn’t what was really bothering him. That wasn't the real problem.

What was _bothering_ him was the fact that he had taken two vials of Dilaudid off of a dead man’s body and hadn't told anyone. What was _bothering_ him was that he wasn't entirely sure why he kept them, or why he suddenly found he was taking them with him wherever he went, even into work--although the answer lay perpetually whispering at the edge of his consciousness. 

But he didn't want to face those answers, and he sure didn't want anyone else to concern themselves with those answers either, so he fell back on old tactics. 

Direct the gaze, control the audience, don't let them see the sleight of hand, the misdirection. Keep the attention off of the thing with the potential to destroy his health and his relationships and his career and his life. Off of the thing that he found himself spending more and more time thinking about, wishing for, needing, craving.

No, keep the attention on something marginally less immediately threatening--like the fact that he may have PTSD. But why not do one better while he was at it, and misdirect the misdirect? Talk about how he knows what it's like to be the victim now instead of admitting to the flashbacks like it's empathy he's discovered and not a crippling, constant fear that the slightest connection to the Hankel case could set him off. Because he knew he was in trouble when _leaves_ , simply by virtue of _being on the ground_ , sent him catapulting back into the past.

Details were his specialty--or were they a curse?--and his mind wouldn't let him forget one nanosecond of it, not even in his dreams.

On his better days, sleep was an unfortunate but necessary evil he would dutifully struggle through, continuing to go back to bed even after waking up from the umpteenth nightmare--or rather, _memory_. On his worst days, the very notion seemed utterly unthinkable. A cruel joke, laughable in the sense that it was as ridiculous as a daily habit of self-inflicted torture.

And then there was his waking life.

Seafood restaurants were out of the question. Barns, sheds, and basically any dilapidated building set him on edge. Graveyards were just asking for trouble in the form of flashbacks and hyperventilation. Shovels had become his least favorite tool, ever, and rope perhaps the most nauseating way you could tie two objects together. 

He had even changed his whole route to the subway just to avoid the homeless guy on the corner who had once (one year, five months and sixteen days ago, to be precise) shouted about the Day of Judgement and the end of the world whilst intoxicated. 

Those were all the things he needed to avoid. That, and more (technically a whole host of issues he'd rather not get into), but he knew how to deal with the critical eye, the attentive audience.

Tip the hand, make them think they're in on the trick, that they have it figured out, but never reveal the true secret. 

A complacent mind is the easiest to fool. 

He _is_ having problems--that is to be expected, after all--but of course, they're the kind that a few platitudes slapped on during a two-minute plane conversation can fix in a wink. He just needs to use his possible PTSD--a certified mental illness--to make him a “better person.” 

Right. Because that's how that works. 

It's almost frustratingly easy how quickly Morgan accepted and was satisfied by that redirect. Even as Reid smiled and looked down, he almost wanted to scream-- _do you honestly believe that fucking_ ** _leaves_ **_are the real problem here?!_ \--but then, he's never really been the shouting type. Besides, isn't this what he wanted? No one the wiser? 

This hurts in a different way, though. Because any magician knows that the audience’s willingness to believe and to be deceived is half the magic.

* * *

He lets them see his need to feel independent, that he can do things on his own. Because they'd expect that, he tells himself. It's only natural when you'd been stripped of all control, via both physical and mental restraints. Plus, angry outbursts could also be a symptom of PTSD. Why he would want them seeing through his misdirect misdirect to the first misdirect eludes him. He just knows it feels good to let a bit of the hurt show. (And when did he start making decisions based on his heart and not his head?)

He may have gotten too carried away with it, however. When he snaps at Prentiss, and some of the itching, stinging irritation that's become his constant companion lessens for a moment, he can't seem to keep back the tart remarks. But indulging his irritation only seems to add fuel to the fire, and soon he finds himself angry at everyone and everything.

At the homeless shelter, he can't help but be reminded of the guy on his street he went out of his way to avoid, and that only leads to Georgia-- _it always goes back to Georgia_ \--and that only heightens the rage and, lingering just beneath, the fear. 

Why shouldn't they be on their guard? Everyone should be wary, should be scared witless, should be on the edge of their seat and the balls of their feet. Unsubs _could_ be anyone, Prentiss--however unlikely--even in this innocuous shelter. 

She acted like he was behaving unreasonably--like there was nothing to worry people about. A killer was on the loose! Does she not remember how _innocuous_ “witness” Tobias Hankel was? How _unreasonable_ it was to worry about a simple interview? To bring back-up to such a mundane task?

Sometimes he wonders if this team really knows each other as well as they think they do.

Sometimes he wonders if he even knows himself anymore.

* * *

He misses the plane. He doesn't care. Was actually an interesting experience. Change of pace. At least that's what he tells himself. 

Morgan doesn't buy it when he cites cell reception as the cause. 

Whatever. Morgan believed his misdirected misdirect (or was it a mis-misdirect? Or a...something or other), so at this point, Reid believes any explanation would suffice. Or no explanation at all. It's not like the profiler really pursued the issue, anyway. 

And wasn't that just it? He had been thinking about it, in that time away from the others, and he had finally figured it out. Either his team--his “family”--just plain didn't notice, or they just plain didn't care. Or, if they did care, not enough to make a concerted effort to help him. Nothing beyond the occasional concerned glance or useless comment. 

After visiting Ethan, the answer seemed obvious. They just didn't care. If his friend he hadn't seen in years could immediately pick out that something was seriously wrong with him (and Reid was fairly certain he had also pinpointed _exactly_ what was wrong with him, in a matter of minutes), then it wasn't even in the cards that a seasoned team of FBI profilers he saw twenty-four-seven wouldn't notice the same thing.

It was funny, in a way, because any expectation he might have of his team depended wholly on his perspective, and that just left Reid in a tangle of confusing thoughts. For example, as coworkers, his team had zero obligation to help him through his personal issues. But if they _were_ just coworkers and they knew what was going on, at least one of them would have reported him, to Hotch at the very least, if not Strauss. But that hadn't happened, he knew, because he hadn't been fired. So, if they were just coworkers, then the only logical answer to the current lack of intervention was that they did not know. But then Reid had already ruled that possibility out due to the improbability of it.

That left Reid with the conclusion that he and his team were indeed more than coworkers; they were friends. With friends, there wasn't the option that they didn't know--Ethan had shown him that much, at least. Since according to the premise that they were friends, they had to know, and it followed that they would have done something. Because that's what friends do, right? If one of them is about to self-destruct and fall so far they can't see the light any longer--they help each other, right? They do something about it?

Thing was, they hadn't. 

Not anything meaningful, anyhow. There were a handful of worried gazes traded not-quite subtly enough, as well as the occasional inquiry into his general well-being, but no strong effort to get to the heart of the matter. Nothing more than a phrase in a stolen moment or a couple of sentences in the middle of a case.

No calling or meeting up outside of work to get an honest answer out of him. No confrontation. No saying what he needed to hear--that they weren't wondering _is he okay_ , but _what's wrong_ and _how could they help_ , because they knew he _wasn't_ okay and were determined to get him through whatever demons were haunting him. 

But that never happened. 

Was he not worth the effort? Or were they really _that_ much more distant than he thought they were? 

It appeared that he had come to a conclusion. He and the others were just casual friends--not even _close_ friends--and certainly not the “family” they liked to pretend they were.

For some reason, that realization hurt more than anything Hankel had put him through. 


	2. Chapter 2

He dreamt. 

That in itself wasn't very shocking--the average person over the age of ten dreams anywhere from four to six times a night, Reid knew--but it was significant in the fact that, for the first time in a long while, it didn't seem to have anything to do with Georgia.

He was on a playground. Wood chips shifted underfoot as he turned around, taking in his surroundings. On his left a collection of tables and benches were scattered before a line of evenly spaced trees. Brightly colored metal and plastic towered to his right, the apparatus in such a state of neglected disrepair that Reid couldn't shake a feeling of paralyzing uneasiness. Graffiti littered the playground and nearby brick building. The swings hung on broken chains, creaking and rattling like metal bones.

A group of students stood a few meters from him in the grass beside the playground. Whether they had been there all along or simply just appeared, Reid could not say. They seemed to be gathered in a semicircle, with a young, dark-haired girl addressing the group. Despite the feeling that something was very wrong, Reid found himself drawn inexplicably closer, coming to a halt slightly outside the group’s circumference.

“Let's play a game called Something's Wrong With Re-id, let's play a game called Something's Wrong With Reid,” she called out in a sing-song voice. The declaration was met with five vacant smiles mirroring the girl's own. Reid startled and looked around as if searching for some other “Reid” they could be referring to, but it appeared he and the group of students were alone. And while the schoolchildren were evidently talking about him, not one of them so much as glanced in his direction.

“Hey, um,” he began timidly, but the dark-haired girl continued on over him. He felt a familiar flash of annoyance-- _I'm standing right here, you know_ \--before it was dampened by the disquiet that hung thick and tangible in the air.

“The rules are simple. Whenever something's wrong with Reid--which, let's be honest, something's _always_ wrong with Reid--all you have to do is ignore it! You can recognize it's _there_ , just don't _fix_ it, or else you'll be disqualified.”

If pressed, Reid would have admitted to an indefinable aching in his chest cavity at that. But what bothered Reid the most wasn’t the flippant, mocking tone or even the words themselves.

It was the eyes. 

The girl wasn't really looking at the group she was addressing, but rather through them. Or maybe like she was looking at something only she could see.

As he walked around to get a better look at the girl’s playmates, he found an odd assortment he never recalled seeing together on a playground in his life. 

A fit, blonde, ponytailed girl in a soccer jersey-- _mean girl_ , his brain supplied unwarranted--had an arm slung around another girl who seemed the polar opposite; stout with large glasses and a hairstyle that couldn’t possibly be functional by Reid’s estimation, bedecked in what the young genius considered a frankly excessive amount of sparkles and unnaturally vibrant colors. 

Next to that strange pair stood an athletic, dark-skinned boy-- _football jock_ , his brain chimed in once more--and a tall, serious-looking, dark-haired boy. Completing the odd half-circle closest to where Reid stood was a shorter, brown-haired boy with strangely weathered features.

In spite of the vast physical differences, they all shared the same eyes as the girl--eyes that saw straight through things and yet didn't see at all. Eyes glazed over, but not inattentive. Cloudy, but not blind. _Dead eyes_ , he realized.

“You see,” the dark-haired girl continued matter-of-factly, “the fun is in the _avoidance_. In how close we can get to the truth without uncovering it, without helping.” The girl faced Reid quite abruptly then, and that was when he noticed the blood. Involuntarily, he took a step back.

Viscous and dark, almost black, the blood poured from a deep horizontal slit across her neck. Fear seized Reid’s lungs, halting their movement. He stumbled back another step as all the other kids turned to face him, similar gashes pulsing out their life-giving contents onto the ground. 

“What's wrong, Reid?” The voice was mocking, malicious even, but he could no longer tell who was speaking. He wasn't even sure the dark-haired girl had been the one doling out the rules of the game in the first place. 

The students--the _corpses_ \--were surrounding him, and desperately Reid tried to push past one of them to escape. Strong fingers clasped onto his shoulder just as a particularly painful set of cleats kicked out the backs of his knees, sending him to the ground. Landing on all fours, he was prepared to scramble to his feet again when he saw what was clutched in his hand. 

A knife, covered in blood. 

“What?” It slipped out in a hoarse whisper, like a broken promise or a desperate prayer. The knife was needle-sharp, strange and foreign and yet familiar. Hurriedly he dropped the weapon into the grass, clambering awkwardly away as if to distance himself from incrimination.

“I, I don't understand,” he looked up entreatingly at soulless eyes, willing them to believe that he didn't do this. He _didn't_ kill them. Right? 

An amused bark of laughter cut off any possible explanations. The dark-skinned boy crouched down beside Reid, cocking his head much like a wild animal listening to an unusual sound. Blood continued to drip from the wound on his neck as empty eyes assessed Reid’s frightened figure. 

“Little boy genius, knows so much and yet understands so little. Trying to hide behind an intellect not big enough to cover even _half_ his shortcomings. Didn’t realize the kid was so damaged he can’t even _see what he’s done_. I guess I...overestimated him.” The boy stood back up with a sneer; his analysis evidently finished and finding Reid somehow lacking. Contempt twisted the ring of faces staring down at him, cruel laughter echoing in the wake of the boy’s words. 

Although Reid was the only one there without a deadly knife wound, it felt as though he had just been stabbed in the heart. He was pretty sure these people’s laughter wasn't supposed to cause him pain, that those nicknames weren't supposed to make him feel like he'd just been gutted. They were supposed to be special and endearing and cause him a little bit of annoyance but also a whole lot of joy. They meant something bigger than what they sounded like and what they were if only he could remember what.

In fact, all these corpses surrounding him, jeering at him, mocking him and hurting him--they meant something too. It wasn't a knowledge so much as a feeling--a deep, visceral instinct that this wasn't how things were supposed to be. Something was fundamentally wrong, something was indescribably _off_. These people weren't who they were supposed to be, or perhaps it was he who wasn't who _he_ was supposed to be? He didn't know. But there was one thing he did know, and, finding his voice once more, he called this belief, this _feeling_ , out desperately--a flashlight cast about in the dark, trying to find the truth.

“No, no, no. I wouldn't hurt you guys! You have to understand! We're...we're friends, remember?” He had not been certain of it until he’d spoken it aloud, but now that he had, he was sure of it. These people were supposed to be his friends. They were supposed to protect each other.

They were supposed to be a family.

They were more than acquaintances, they were brothers and sisters in arms, and Reid knew with absolute conviction that he would give his life for any one of theirs and that any one of them would do the same for him. He just had to get them to remember! Then everything would be alright! Everything _had_ to be alright!

“You have to remember!” he yelled, jumping to his feet, “We're a family!”

But he was only met with the soft keening of broken swings on broken chains, the only evidence of the encounter the blood-stained grass and discarded knife. 

He was not sure if he heard the words or imagined them, but their faint echoes followed him into wakefulness nonetheless.

“Are we?”

Reid awoke with tear-stained cheeks and absolutely no desire to close his eyes for the rest of the night.

* * *

Dr. Spencer Reid was never really one for soul searching. 

He’d generally figured it a useless exercise, that there was always something else he could be putting his mind to and occupying his time with. Plus, the name itself was vexing--there was no conclusive scientific evidence of human beings even possessing souls, so the idea of “searching” through something that may not even exist seemed positively ludicrous. But now, with another case closed, several hours before their plane’s departure, and his current location in a jazz bar in New Orleans staring pensively up at his old friend on the piano, he found himself doing exactly that. Soul searching. Or whatever the proper term was for his introspective state.

He had found that for the first time in a long time, he could finally think clearly; like he'd been drowning and somehow blundered his way into choking in a breath of fresh air. He wasn't intending to waste the accompanying moment of clarity. Whether it was the revelations from a half-remembered dream or if he was just too tired to be angry any longer, he did not know. All he knew was that he couldn't fool himself anymore--this was going to kill him, eventually, and he was just so _tired_ of running from the truth, of dodging his own voice in his head telling him his chances of surviving this next hit, reciting file after file of instances of the far-reaching devastation of drug abuse, and reminding him of the ever-increasing risk of developing mental illness. 

He was done running away. Away from Georgia, from his problems, from his teammates, and from _himself._ Just...done _._

So when Gideon sat down beside him, he was of the fullest intention to come clean and finally get help. He was sure that if anyone could help him, it was his friend, his mentor, his father figure. He had to concentrate not to break down when he admitted he was struggling; to anchor the pain somewhere inside so he could push through this conversation.

But then Gideon was saying how anyone would be struggling in his position, and suddenly Reid wasn't so sure that the senior agent knew what he was really getting at. 

Almost reflexively, Reid did what he knew best. He misdirected. Before he could gather up his rapidly deserting courage to correct his mentor that _no, there is something else I need to tell you, there is something more I was alluding to--I need help, please, please hear what I don't have the strength to say_ \--he finds himself instead saying that missing the plane was a way to see if he could step away from the job. 

Suddenly Gideon is giving him some abstract monologue about when to get out of their line of work, all the while Reid’s insides are on fire. He needed to see if he could step away from the job _because he's not sure how much longer he can continue on like this._ Because he knows one day, someday, sometime soon, his addiction will either cost him his life or his job, and if it's the former nothing will matter at that point anyway, but if it's the latter, he needs to know he won't be completely lost without the life he has now, that he could somehow survive the crushing blow that would deal.

There was definitely some truth to what he told Gideon--after all, a misdirection is not a lie, but a repositioning of the importance of a given set of facts. It reorders what to notice and where to look. The ordeal he went through in Georgia _has_ made him doubt his ability, his place on the team, even his career choice--but despite his doubts, he still knows in his innermost being that he wouldn't do anything else in the world, and that of all the things he could have done and all the places he could have gone with his off-the-charts IQ and eidetic memory, he _belongs_ at the FBI. He _belongs_ at the BAU. He _belongs_ on a team led by Unit Chief Aaron Hotchner, with SSA Derek Morgan, Emily Prentiss, Jason Gideon, technical analyst Penelope Garcia, and media liaison Jennifer Jareau. 

So-- _no_ , _Gideon_ \--this was not just about missing a plane and wondering about quitting, it was about a lot more than that. It was about the ghost of Tobias Hankel that had been haunting Reid since the night Reid had been forced to shoot him. It was about the problem that everyone seemed to notice but no one wanted to address. 

Unbidden, a little girl’s voice floated back to him from the shores of an unknown world.

_“Let's play a game called Something's Wrong With Re-id, let's play a game called Something's Wrong With Reid.”_

He blinked and found Gideon waiting expectantly for an answer to his query. Well? What did he find, in his “quest” to see if he could step away?

“I'll never miss another plane again,” is what he said aloud, sidestepping the question. 

What he'd actually found was that he _could_ leave this job if it came to that--he only hoped that that day never came. No, he would not voluntarily abandon his life's work, but if circumstances forced it upon him, he would have no choice but to recover and adapt. And he would, to the best of his ability, but, _damn it, wasn't this conversation supposed to be about preventing that outcome?_

The moment of courage to come clean had passed, slipped through Reid’s fingers like infinitesimally small grains of sand, each one scoring his hands with their physical absence. Reid sat immovable as stone, frozen with regret and yet too terrified to say what needed to be said, until Gideon reached over, patted his leg, got up, and left.

Sometimes, Reid wished he wasn't so good at misdirection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that was the second installment--did something a little bit different there with the dream sequence. Hope it turned out alright. 
> 
> Anyways, please feel free to leave a comment! Even if the writing's a bit old, I still very much appreciate the feedback. Oh, and thank you so much to everyone who's dropped a kudos! =D


	3. Chapter 3

Their next case was a serial arsonist, and Reid could hardly focus at first, becoming so preoccupied with the daunting prospect of finding help that he accidentally burned his hand on the local PD’s coffee machine. The copious amounts of coffee he'd been drinking really wasn't any sort of effective substitute, but he tried to convince himself that it was anyways. The others didn't seem to notice-- _what else is new_ , a traitorous corner of his mind seethed--and he played it off absentminded professor style. JJ actually aided in this misdirection so effectively-- _his coordination tends to drop off while he’s thinking_ \--that Reid spared half a moment reflecting on what an excellent magician’s assistant she would make, before quickly shoving that thought to the back of his mind. 

Work quickly took precedence over any errant thoughts, and Reid didn't find an opportunity to say something until they were at the tail end of giving the profile. It was stupid and rash and not the time nor the place for it, but he took the chance regardless because there'd never _be_ a “right time.” He had the good sense to connect it to the case, obviously--he hadn't completely lost his mind, after all--and he hoped they got the thinly veiled message.

He said the arsonist was like a drug addict. He said the unsub wouldn't stop, that his obsession with fire was similar to needing more and more of a drug with each new fix to get the same high. He said it'd be almost impossible to stop without help, and then he hoped to _God_ someone heard what he was really saying because he wasn't so sure he had the willpower to drop another blatant hint like that anytime soon. He felt Morgan and Hotch’s eyes on him, and he even risked a glance at Gideon right after that last incriminating statement.

He hoped to see understanding, some sort of realization that _this was as close as Reid could bring himself to asking for help_ , but Gideon looked down, and all Reid could gather from the look in his mentor's eyes was denial, and pensiveness, and pain. Reid looked away then, too, his stomach dropping as a cold realization sunk in. 

_He doesn't want to believe it._

And Reid knew Gideon--he would think himself in circles, in knots, until he had convinced himself that what Reid had said was unconnected to anything other than the case, that it was merely an illustration to prove a point. That if this had anything to do with the Hankel case, it was because of Tobias’s drug use and not Reid’s own. Or even more preferably, because of the genius’s medical knowledge and extensive reading, or even just because he went to a Las Vegas public high school. 

Then Hotch was ushering the investigation onwards and everyone was getting swept up in the case, and Reid’s partially-revealed inner turmoil was put on the backburner once more. 

In the end, the unsub went up in a ball of benzene fire, killed by a well-meaning father dying of cancer who just wanted his death to mean something. The case was definitely the hardest on Hotch, a fellow father that understood where Abby was coming from just a little too well.

Reid heard that the man had left Hotch to give a letter to his son. Honestly, Reid was grateful for this (despite his own misadventures with letters from absent fathers), because it wasn't until after that trip that their Unit Chief had shored up the few cracks in his composure, pulling himself together with a rapidity and totality that only Aaron Hotchner could achieve. It wasn't anything anyone outside the team would have noticed, but Reid could see it in the way he stood with just a little less tension, how the worry lines were just a little less pronounced, and how just a little bit of light had returned to his dark gaze. 

Worrying about Hotch seemed to have pushed any thoughts about Reid’s cry for help out of sight and out of mind. A few weeks ago that would have saddened and embittered him--okay, it still hurt--but on the whole, the case had reminded him of something very important: perspective.

They all had their demons. They all had ghosts haunting them, and they all had been stained in some way by the shadows of the past. If being in this job had taught Reid anything, it was that no one who took up profiling was ever really whole. They were all broken in some way. But somehow despite that, on this team, a collection of shattered souls had found a way to fit the jagged pieces of themselves together to form some semblance of a whole. Not on their own, but as one. As a unit. As a family.

And if his own experience, the cases he worked, and time itself had shown him anything, it was that families weren't perfect. In his previous analysis he had deduced that the only explanation for his teammates’ behavior was that their relationship was one of casual friends; that they could not possibly have the close, familial bonds he used to believe they had considering they had let him slip further and further away. It was simply incongruous.

Now, however, he realized that it was precisely _because_ they were family, and more than friends, that it had been so hard for any of them to see what was right in front of them. The inattention of coworkers to each other’s problems could explain the lack of understanding and subsequent lack of aid, but so could a fierce denial to face a difficult truth about a loved one. He knew he was seen as the baby of the team, the little brother that everyone wanted to protect. Sometimes it irritated him to no end, that they would shield him from some things, but more often than not it just felt nice to be cared about for once. And what he'd come to realize was that his team didn't want to face the fact that someone they cared about, someone they saw as their little brother, had a drug problem. 

He had been doing a bit more of that soul searching thing--not of his own soul, but of his teammates’, trying to get a new perspective on things. If he had been in their shoes and one of them had been in his, he knew he would have found a way to blame himself for it, and he knew that's exactly what they had done. When you had a job like theirs, a job to protect and to serve, and then to find yourself in a position of absolute helplessness--well. Let's just say most of them didn't cope too well with something like that. No doubt they felt they had failed him in some way, even though it was he who had suggested they split up and then promptly gotten himself kidnapped. 

JJ most likely thought it was her fault for letting them separate, even though he hadn't really given her a choice. Garcia probably blamed herself for not being able to track the live video feed, her technological skills of no use in the situation. Morgan and Prentiss, people of action if Reid had ever met any, probably went crazy being unable to do anything, their prowess in the field as inapplicable in the circumstances as Garcia’s hacking abilities. Gideon likely felt as though he had failed Reid as a mentor, what with how his encouraging words had ended up being directly responsible for the genius’s brief death. And Hotch, well, he had undoubtedly felt responsible for Reid, believing that any harm that came to the youngest agent was on him as the team’s leader. 

So was it that hard to believe that after everything that had happened, his family simply refused to believe that something even worse had come out of it all? That Reid had never really left that graveyard, that he carried a piece of that night with him wherever he went--literally running through his veins? They wanted to forget and put it all in the past so much that they would rather ignore the signs and deny the facts, look the other way and sell themselves a lie, than face the truth. 

They would rather believe in magic than recognize the misdirection for what it was.

Sitting on the plane ride back to Quantico, Reid made a choice. He decided to quit--that he was done for good--right then and there with Morgan next to him, eyes closed and headphones on, Hotch and Gideon talking quietly over an open file, JJ and Prentiss sitting next to each other across the aisle, and a sunrise warming the clouds outside the plane window.

He would quit, and he would stay clean, and he would do it alone. 

Was it the right choice? Maybe, maybe not. But he found that he had all he needed to move forward, and he didn't want to put his family in a difficult position. As soon as one of them knew definitively what was going on, they would have an obligation to report it, and while Reid was sure that none of them would give a damn about being implicated and risking their job for keeping his secret, he didn't want to do that to them. He cared too much about them. So he would take advantage of their denial and refusal to see, and he would face this alone.

* * *

It was hard. Trying. Painful. Arduous. Actually, it was perhaps the most difficult thing he had ever done in his life, with the sole exception of sending his mother to the sanatorium. While that had been devastating emotionally, however, withdrawals were like a special kind of hell; a mixture of physical, psychological, and emotional torture that had Reid drawing on every last reserve of willpower he had. Countless times he wished he had told someone so they could help him through--just _one_ person--and even more times he had almost picked up his phone and did just that. But he never did.

He told himself it was his turn to protect them, even if they never found out about it. It would be enough to have saved his family the risk, to have saved them the pain of seeing him go through agony and torment, _again_. Spencer Reid had become an expert at turning personal pain into the caretaking of others. The way he saw it, he had suffered years of bullying and ridicule to protect his mother from being taken away until he could personally select and pay for the best care available. He could suffer a bit more to spare his patchwork family the jagged edge of the latest fracture in his soul.

He couldn't fool himself entirely, however. He knew his reasons were not wholly altruistic in nature. Part of it was that he didn't want them to see him so weak. He didn't want them to know that he hadn't been able to resist the drug, and the escape it offered, in the first place. And he sure as hell didn't want them to think any less of him because of it. He didn't want them to baby him any more than they already did, and he didn't want them to pity him. Disappointment he could handle, anger he knew he deserved, but he didn’t know how to deal with pity. 

Despite the research he had done, he had underestimated the prolonged torture that was withdrawals, and he ended up having to take more than a few sick days to pull through it all. He still wasn't entirely sure how he had survived. Not necessarily the physical symptoms, but the battle of wills against the intense craving that bled through the whole experience, unrelenting as the tide. It was a greater relief than could accurately be described once it was over. 

He wasn't naive enough to believe that all his struggles were behind him, however. Dealing with addiction was a lifelong effort. He would have to resist its insidious allure after tough cases, bad days, personal trials, and losses--moments of weakness would be the moments most critical to remain strong through. But he would do it, no matter what. Not just for his own sake, but his family's as well. 

Hopefully, though, fighting off a potential relapse was far in the distant future. At any rate, he couldn't live in fear of the structural integrity of his own strength of character. He would have to trust himself, avoid triggers and temptations, and carry on with normal life. First and foremost, that meant returning to his job. 

When he did come back to work, the only one who seemed to have figured out what had been going on was Hotch. The moment Reid stepped through the glass doors, he felt those inscrutable dark eyes sweep over his thin frame from above the bullpen. When JJ called everyone into the round table room to be briefed on the next case, Hotch held the door open for Reid and gave him an almost imperceptible nod as he passed, a hint of pride in his eyes that filled Reid with a warm glow of both gratitude for Hotch’s discretion and happiness at his acknowledgment. Reid’s mouth quirked upwards in a small smile even as he averted his gaze to the ground and walked past his boss into the room. 

“Hey! Look who's back,” Morgan called out from his position reclined in a chair. Prentiss looked up from the file she was reading and sent a sympathetic smile Reid’s way, a slight shadow of uncertainty in her bright eyes. 

“I heard you had a pretty bad case of the flu, huh? You feeling better?” 

A month ago he probably would have taken her head off at that (for insinuating he couldn't do his job or something to that effect), but now he only felt relief. Seeing her query for the olive branch it was, he dipped his head in appreciation for her concern and cleared his throat, giving a hesitant smile. 

“Much.” 

Prentiss’s shoulders and smile relaxed minutely, her posture more at ease as she turned back to the file in front of her. Settling his messenger bag on the floor next to him, Reid followed suit and opened up his own copy of the file.

And that was all that was said on the matter. 

JJ began her brief presentation of their next case as soon as everyone was seated, and theories, questions, and banter were soon flying back and forth across the table. Reid always marveled at the way this group was able to bounce ideas off of one another, refuting, adjusting, and adding onto one another's thoughts in an organic dance that never grew old. 

“Wheels up in thirty,” Hotch said, and Reid had to try to hide his radiant smile by reaching down to collect his messenger bag. Evidently he was unsuccessful in this endeavor, however, as Morgan tilted his head at him to follow his progress.

“What's got you smilin’ so big, pretty boy?” he asked, an amused, if puzzled, grin on his face. Reid straightened up, bag in hand as he glanced around at the people he loved most in the world, the team going about packing up their things. He shook his head, his smile grown impossibly wider.

“Nothing, I'm just...really glad to be back.”

 _Fin_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! The third and final installment. Again, I would love to hear all your thoughts and any comments/feedback you may have, they really do make my day.


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